I have three children. As they get older, I think more often about what I can actually give them as a father. Not materially, and not as a set of correct answers for every situation. There are things I would rather show them by the way I live.
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I write about family, life in Norway, wellbeing, FitLine, personal growth and business. Here you will find personal stories, observations and answers to questions I have researched for myself.
After many years together with my wife, I have learned that a family is not strengthened by beautiful words or occasional big gestures. What matters much more is what happens again and again: whether people can rely on you, whether you notice when the other person is struggling, whether you keep your word and whether you take responsibility for your share of family life. For me, strong family relationships are built from things like these.
When you have children, it is very easy to expect too much from yourself. Stay calm. Be patient. Always know what to say. Never lose your temper. Never get it wrong. The longer I am a father, the less I believe in that kind of parent. I think much more about something else now: what a child feels next to us, especially when the day has not gone well.
When I was a child, my mother was simply my mother and my father was simply my father. I never thought about how much they worked, what they were afraid of, what they worried about or how often they put their own plans aside because of their children. I started understanding many of these things only after I became a father myself.